Obama on Church and State

In a speech sponsored by Sojourner's, Barack Obama discussed the interaction of religion and politics.

Transcript:http://obama.senate.gov/podcast/060628-call_to_renewal_keynote/index.html
MP3:http://obama.senate.gov/podcast/060628_Sen.Barack_Obama_Podcast_Call_to_Renewal_Keynote_34.mp3

I was particularly impressed with his speaking ability. He comes across as an intelligent and thoughtful man (though I know little of his political career outside of this speech).

This religious tendency is not simply the result of successful marketing by skilled preachers or the draw of popular mega-churches. In fact, it speaks to a hunger that's deeper than that - a hunger that goes beyond any particular issue or cause. Each day, it seems, thousands of Americans are going about their daily rounds - dropping off the kids at school, driving to the office, flying to a business meeting, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets - and they're coming to the realization that something is missing. They are deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough. They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They're looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them - that they are not just destined to travel down that long highway towards nothingness.

This shows a very intuitive sense of the emptiness that arose out of modernity's fall and he goes on to elucidate his own experience.

And in its historical struggles for freedom and the rights of man, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world. As a source of hope. And perhaps it was out of this intimate knowledge of hardship -- the grounding of faith in struggle -- that the church offered me a second insight, one that I think is important to emphasize today. Faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts.

He seems to make it clear that religious beliefs should not be 'checked at the door' when entering the public sphere and that a failure to address religious beliefs is both a rhetorical and legal failure.

The real problems with the speech lay at the end, where he discusses a few points that religious people should understand when entering the world of politics. He lays out 3 points.

1. church and state
2. church and pluralism
3. church and proportion

The first point, though sticky and confused, is fine. I'm not sure that I agree, but the basic idea that the institutional structures should not be bound is well taken.

The other two points, though, I'm throwing to the floor for critique. Here's no 2 (I'll leave #3 to anyone interested):

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all. Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what's possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing. And if you doubt that, let me give you an example. We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded. Of course, in the end God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute, and Abraham passes God's test of devotion. But it's fair to say that if any of us leaving this church saw Abraham on a roof of a building raising his knife, we would, at the very least, call the police and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away from Abraham. We would do so because we do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that we all see, and that we all hear, be it common laws or basic reason.